


Train Tracks

by elfin



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: After 'Sound of Nothing', Todd comes clean.





	Train Tracks

His head felt like the one eyed purple people eating monster had been sucking on his brain. 

Todd couldn’t remember the last time he’d a hangover this bad. He moved cautiously, worried that any wrong move might have him puking over the edge of the bunk as he peered down to the mattress beneath his own. It was empty, which meant it was then debatable which was more important; finding something to stop his head from exploding, or finding Dirk.

Things had got quite.... intense the night before. From confessions of eternal best friendship, to heartbreaking disclosures of lifelong loneliness, tears (of course, he and Dirk didn’t seem to be capable of a heart to heart without a little bit of crying), and most disturbing of all, the hug that somehow became something else. 

Out of desperation and respect for the cleanliness of the police station, he found water and Tylenol before locating Dirk. Neither search took long; Hobbs seemed to keep a pharmacy in the top drawer of his desk, and Todd’s holistic friend was sitting outside on the steps of the police station, arms crossed on his knees, head down.

It was still early, given the low sun peeking above the horizon, but it was a beautiful morning. Apt, as if followed what hoped he would eventually come to think of (once the headache subsided) as a beautiful night.

The best way to approach Dirk on these occasions, he’d found, was tangentially. So Todd sat down on the step beside him and said, ‘Please, please stop putting… whatever it is you keep on putting in your hair,’ 

Dirk raised his head, bewilderment in his expression. ’What?’ His confusion was exactly what Todd had been aiming for. It was a distraction from whatever he had been thinking about because it was something tangible. It stopped him in his tracks and re-routed his train of thought. Todd knew him so well he was able to watch its progression across his features, from his furrowed eyebrows down to his pouty lips. It brought a smile to Todd’s face. ‘What does it matter to you what I do with my hair?’

‘I like your hair. I want to run my fingers through it and not come away all sticky.’

Dirk looked surprised, slightly scandalised, then he brightened like the sunshine, before shrugging like it was no big deal. ‘Okay.’

They shared the silence for a moment or two. ‘Dirk, last night….’

After Tina had broken into their weird conversation to announce that she wanted to fuck everyone in the room, she’d danced off again in the direction of the stage. Farah, with a noticeably hopeful expression, had followed. Todd had momentarily considered going after them both, but one glance at Dirk and he’d known exactly where he wanted to be. Taking one last step to close the gap between them, literally as well as figuratively, he’d gripped the shoulders of Dirk’s red jacket again. Then, of course, he’d realised that not only was Dirk not going to make the first move, he wasn’t going to make the second, third or fourth moves either. 

So, with Dirk watching him with a mix of suspicion and curiosity, Todd let his hands slide down the smooth arms of the jacket, taken Dirk’s hands and pulled them around to the small of his back before reaching up and wrapping his own arms around Dirk’s neck.

Very slowly, Dirk’s forehead had come forward to rest against Todd’s. Those long, wiry arms had tightened warily around him and finally, finally, two rapidly moving bodies came to rest against one another in the centre of the storm, in the swirl of the universe. It was the most peaceful, the most contented Todd had been in as long as he could remember. Dirk had felt wonderfully solid and reassuringly real. 

Dirk sighed but didn’t fold back in on himself as Todd expected. Instead, he leaned sideways until his head was resting on Todd’s shoulder. ‘Please don’t take back what you said last night. I know we were… drugged with shiny pink magic triangles, but please let me keep it.’

‘Dirk… I wasn’t going to. Whatever happened to us, it was a good thing. A happy thing.’ Except that what Dirk had said to him should was the most heartbreaking thing he’d ever heard. ‘We weren’t drugged exactly, we were… uninhibited.’

‘Isn’t that what to be drugged is?’

He had a point. ‘I suppose….’ Dirk lifted his head and Todd turned to look at him. ‘Was I really the first person to stick around?’ A nod confirmed it. ‘But… why?’

‘Well… as you’ve noted on several occasions, I can be very…. annoying.’

Todd smiled. ‘I’m sure I can be just as annoying to you. I mean, I didn’t believe you when you told me what you were, and about the CIA, then I tested you with the cowboy, then accused you of lying to me about seeing yourself in the past when I was guilty of the exact same thing. The difference is, you put up with it. You keep letting all the bad things I say slide. You’re so very precious, Dirk. I should have told you that before now.’

He expected the tears; Dirk wore his heart on his sleeve, his emotions close to the surface at the best of times, but since his still unexplained escape from Blackwing’s clutches, he’d been withdrawn, anxious, very protective of Todd and of himself. Understandable when they both knew Friedkin or someone working with him was out there somewhere, still looking for him.

‘You have friends now, Dirk. You need to start acting like it.’

‘I… I thought I had been.’

‘Deciding to face a one eyed purple people eating monster alone instead of asking for help? Ignoring who you are and your connection to the universe, to everything, just to keep us out of harm’s way, when we both know full well the universe is going to do exactly what it damn will wants anyway?’

‘Isn’t that what friends do? Look out for one another?’

‘Yes. And that’s what we do. But not to the detriment of living our lives. Not sacrificing who we are - more importantly, who you are.’

‘But I’m dangerous!’

‘Life is dangerous. You... you’re the most dazzling person I’ve ever met.’

‘But don’t you see? I feel the same way about you. To me, you’re unique. I’ve never met anyone like you and I never thought I would.’

‘Like me?’ Todd laughed. ‘There are a million people like me.’

‘No. There simply aren’t. If there were, I wouldn’t have been alone all my life.’ Todd hated it when he said things like that. ‘And that’s why I have this overwhelming need to keep you safe. Being around me isn’t safe.’

‘Being around you is where I’m happy. It’s where I want to be, at your side, having adventures with you, solving cases with you, I want to be with you, Dirk, and I need you to trust in that.’

‘I do trust you.’

‘That’s not what I said. I know you trust me. But you need to trust in… us, in our friendship, in our… partnership. You can talk to me, even if all you want to say is that you’re scared, or sad, or upset, or God forbid, happy.’ He nudged Dirk’s shoulder and got a self-conscious smile in return even as he started to wring his hands together. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been keeping… things from you.’

Reaching over, Todd slid his hand between Dirk’s, stopping the anxious movement, threading their fingers together. ‘You don’t have to keep things from me because you think you’re protecting me. Blackwing grabbing you outside the diner must have been terrifying, and the time they had you… I can’t imagine.’

He could feel the fine tremors and waited. ’I knew they were coming. I felt them. I knew if they wanted me, if you tried to stop them, they’d either take you too or kill you. I knew I couldn’t stop them so I… went out to them.’

‘Oh, Dirk….’

‘They had me but at least I knew you were safe.’

‘I spent three months searching for you….’

‘With Farah.’

Todd shook his head. ’We’re not together, not in the way you think. Three months in such close proximity, I think she was ready to kill me by the time we got here.’

Dirk turned to look at him, eyes red, but his smile was genuine and he was still holding his hand. ‘It’s okay if you’re with Farah, Todd…. I want you to be happy.’

‘I’m not with Farah. And I am happy.’

Todd loved his puzzled expression. ‘But you like each other, I know you do. You’re a good match.’

He squeezed Dirk’s hand. ‘I like you too.’

‘I know you do. We’re friends. I mean, you wouldn’t be my friend if you didn’t like me.’ Todd waited for the penny to drop, but it didn’t.

‘I really like you.’

‘Oh. Oh.’ Finally. ‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘Really. And don’t say it like it’s completely improbable.’

‘It sort of is.’

‘Hey. Remember when I kept telling you I was an asshole and you told me to stop because it was starting to sound cheap and insulting to you?’ Dirk nodded. ‘Well you talking like that is insulting to me.’ 

He looked suitably chastised. ‘Sorry.’ Then another expression; bewilderment chasing away the apology. ‘But… really?’

Todd laughed, and leaned into his shoulder, squeezing his hand again. ’Really.’

‘Well… I like you too. Really.’

‘I know. You don’t have a great poker face. Well, you don’t have one at all. You don’t play things close to your chest.’

Dirk's cheek came to rest against his hair. ‘I could work on that.’

Todd shook his head. ‘No. Don’t change. Never change. Believe me, you’re just right.’


End file.
